Spinozan Neuroscience

In injecting the slightest bit of empiricism into Kvond’s and Sinthome’s recent discussions of Spinozan psychology, I’m struck by the similarity of Spinoza’s framework (as I understand it from secondary sources) with contemporary distributed models of neural networks. Here’s a nice summary from a book I haven’t read, written by a neuroscientist who resonates with Spinoza:

The neural patterns and the corresponding images of the objects and events outside the brain are creations of the brain related to the reality that prompts the creation rather than passive mirror images mirror images reflecting that reality. For example, when you and I look at an external object we form comparable images in our respective brains, and we can describe in very similar ways. For example, when you and I look at an external object, we form comparable images in our respective brains, and we can describe the object in very similar ways. That does not mean, however, that the image we see is a replica of the object. The image we see is based on changes that occurred in our organisms, in the body and in the brain, as the physical structure of that particular object interacts with the body. The ensemble of sensory detectors are located throughout our bodies and help construct neural patterns that map the comprehensive interaction of the organism with the object along its many dimensions. If you are watching and listening to a pianist play a certain piece, say Schubert’s D.960 Sonata, the comprehensive interaction includes patterns that are visual, auditory, motor (related to the movements made in order to see and hear), and emotional. The emotional patterns result from the reaction to the person playing, to how the music is being played, and to characteristics of the music itself.

The neural patterns corresponding to the above scene are constructed according to the brain’s own rules, and are achieved for a brief period of time in the multiple sensory and motor regions of the brain. The building of those neural patterns is based on the momentary selection of neurons and circuits engaged by the interaction. In other words, the building blocks exist within the brain, available to be picked up — selected — and assembled in a particular arrangement. Imagine a room dedicated to Lego play, filled with every Lego piece conceivable, and you get part of the picture. You could construct anything you fancied, as does the brain because it has component pieces for every sensory modality.

The images we have in our minds, then, are the result of interactions between each of us and objects that engaged our organisms, as mapped in neural patterns constructed according to the organism’s design. It should be noted that this does not deny the reality of objects. The objects are real. Nor does it deny the reality of the interactions between object and organism. And of course the images are real too. And yet, the images we experience are brain constructions prompted by an object, rather than mirror reflections of the object. There is no picture of the object being transferred optically by the retina to the visual cortex. Likewise, the sounds you hear are not trumpeted from the cochlea to the auditory cortex by some megaphone, although physical transformations do travel from one to the other, in a metaphorical sense. There is a set of correspondences, which has been achieved in the long history of evolution, between the physical characteristics of objects independent of us and the menu of possible responses of the organism. The neural pattern attributed to a certain object is constructed according to the menu of correspondences by selecting and assembling the appropriate tokens. We are so biologically similar among ourselves, however, that we construct similar neural patterns of the same thing. It should not be surprising that similar images arise out of those similar neural patterns. That is why we can accept, without protest, the conventional idea that each of us has formed in our minds the reflected picture of some particular thing. In reality, we did not.

– Antonio Damasio, in Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain (2003), pages 198-200

The Life of $

In yesterday’s discussion on the Navel Gazers’ post, passing reference was made to The Da Vinci Code as an example of financially successful commercial fiction. It brought back to mind a conversation Anne and I had with a commercial novelist, a friend of a friend, I guess it must have been about four years ago now. I’m not exactly sure what his genre is called — survival supernatural adventure thriller maybe. I’d regard him as a successful mid-list author, having had several books published with most of them still in print as paperbacks. I read one of his books and found that he writes very well, with snap and idiosyncrasy.

It wasn’t hard for us to identify him at the coffee shop, since he’s got the casual grizzled look characteristic of old-school Boulderites. He’s climbed Everest, lived in various exotic locales, been in jail at least once, and now he’s somewhat uncomfortably settled into the middle-class life with wife and kid. We had to enunciate very clearly and face-on, since he’d lost most of his hearing to the cold in some climbing debacle. Throughout the conversation he continually looked over his shoulder, as if he suspected that someone was spying on us.

He told us about his six-figure settlement with a major Hollywood studio that had put together a screenplay based at least partly on one of his novels but without paying or crediting him. His sense was that the studios do this sort of thing regularly, figuring it’s cheaper to pay off the lawsuits than actually to pay the authors what they’re worth. The studios can afford the high-priced lawyers, the writers can’t.

He said he wished that he wrote books his young daughter could read, but he had to spice up his work with the usual “adult” elements of sex and violence. He said he wished he’d written The Life of Pi, which is a survival adventure story that’s both more literary and more kid-friendly than his own books. He felt locked into his authorial persona and style: the readers expect a certain kind of book from an established author, preventing him from experimenting and growing as a writer. What about creating a new pen name, we suggested: then you could write what you really want to write. I don’t have the time or energy to do that and still keep up with the demand for my usual stuff, he replied.

He talked about the disaster that was his most recent book. Previously he had written a first installment of a possible trilogy and, because it proved to be his biggest-selling book ever, the publisher gave him a big advance for the second volume. While he was writing this second installment his editor left the publishing house and signed on with a competitor. This editor was working on the manuscripts of two writers at the time, and he managed to take one of them with him to the new job. That writer was Dan Brown, and the book was The Da Vinci Code. Our new friend’s book, having been left behind, found itself orphaned, without an internal champion to move it forward. The new editor apparently resented being assigned this book in mid-edit and decided to bad-mouth it to the head of the publishing house. The publisher sent our new writerly acquaintance an extremely critical letter which included a list of ten things a new writer should do in order to write a good book. The writer was ordered to come to a meeting in New York to discuss the book, which he would have to pay for himself. Eventually the book came out, but the publisher did nothing to publicize it and effectively let it die on the shelves. At the time of our coffee shop discussion our co-conversant was working with his agent to find a new publisher for his next book.

Dan Brown still writes promo blurbs for the back covers of every one of this guy’s new novels.

Navel Gazers’ Club

I’m glad I didn’t have to drive off into the snowstorm last night to attend my writers’ group meeting, since earlier in the day we sent rejection letters to each other.

Remember the short story I presented at the public reading sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers group? Remember my subsequent email exchange with Dave, the MC for the public reading event? Well the RMFW sponsors a number of writers’ groups, and it turns out there’s one centered in Boulder where I live. Last Monday was the first meeting I attended, and I must admit I had an inkling it might also be the last. Though my wife has subjected herself to this sort of discipline before and generally found it more discouraging and irritating than helpful, I wanted to see for myself. I arrived late, having spent a quarter hour trying to zero in on the hotel where the group convenes its weekly critique sessions. Two of the regular members arrived after I did though, bringing the total attendance to six.

We went around the table introducing ourselves and describing the type of fiction we write. When it came to my turn I handled the first question well enough but found myself stumped on the second. The leader asked if I could at least give a two-sentence description of my novels. The first I characterized as the tale of a reluctant messianic figure, a leader of pilgrimages whose mentor has been asked to track him down and find out why he had dropped out of sight. It’s an adventure novel then, one member hazarded. No, I said: while the characters do eventually arrive at a destination they do tend to meander quite a bit. The second novel then: it’s about a guy trying to be a portalist, guiding people to alternate realities, but he keeps getting sidetracked by inconsequential mishaps. Does he find an alternate reality, asked one of the fantasy writers. Well, yes, but it’s not much different from this reality, and it’s never quite clear whether it’s real or in his head. Ah, magical realism, perhaps you would like Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I nodded noncommittally, muttered a few half-conceived thoughts about Philip Dick and Borges, and started looking around the table for someone to rescue me. General fiction then, was the consensus. Yes, literary fiction, I asserted. Mutterings of disapproval all around: evidently that was the wrong answer too.

So now we get down to the main event: critique. One of the guys in the group, a fortyish high school English teacher, has brought with him a synopsis of his novel, which he plans to enter into some sort of competition. He hands around copies of the synopsis to all the attendees. As the leader reads it aloud everyone else is busy jotting notes in the margins of their copies. The oral reading concludes, and everyone flips back to the first page of the document, reading again silently, making more annotations. After awhile one of the members volunteers to go first. She commends a few turns of phrase and structural decisions made by the writer before leveling her main criticism: we don’t learn enough about the motivations driving the story. Cut out some of the back story and embed the plot details inside a more thematic context. I generally agreed: the synopsis was very heavy on plot details, and I found myself rereading again and again trying to keep the story straight. A more general overview would help frame the details. On to the next member: she wanted to know more about the main characters, mostly so that the reader would care about what happens to them in the story. I agreed with that too. She asked if there was a romantic interest in the story: was it the noble warrior-diplomat and the kidnapped princess, or the shadow warrior and the princess’ sister? Discussion revolved around how these romances were handled in Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, the intent clearly being to make this new book follow those successful precedents as closely as possible. Jungian archetypes entered the conversation. I said I thought the romance might be between the noble and the shadow warrior. No one found this remark either amusing or helpful. When it got to be my turn I said that I thought the whole synopsis ought to be longer: keep the detailed plot info, but add theme and character stuff as well. This proved to be the consensus recommendation to the writer. I felt a bit more comfortable, though I’m quite certain I wouldn’t want to read the book we’ve been discussing.

The next writer up for critique handed out 8 pages from near the end of a romance novel she’s writing. It turns out I know this woman: her daughter and mine used to attend the same primary school. At the time I’d regarded this woman as kind of a pain in the ass know-it-all. No matter: now we’re in a different context, I can overlook these things. The guy who wrote the synopsis is chosen to read this bit aloud, and he does a crackerjack job of it, even using a passable Irish accent for the dialogue. The story takes place in Dublin in the early 1800s, and it deals with the foibles and romances of a young country girl who was raped by her father and is trying to make a life for herself in the big dirty city. In the excerpt we’re considering, the girl and one of the big affable young Irishmen who are protecting her from some previously-described threat are being lured into a trap. Critique centers on a few details in the narrative: a motivational incongruity, an odd POV shift, improbable positioning of the entrapped characters. That all sounded fine to me, though again I had a sense that I would find it a chore to read through this book in such detail for week after week. As the discussion continued I found myself sinking deeper and deeper into my chair, bored and anxious. My own motivation was waning; my POV was starting to recede; I longed to fast-forward to the scene where I’m driving home.

* * *

The next day I received a brief and cordial email from the leader of the group welcoming me to come back the next week. I read about the audition process, whereby prospective new members who would like the group to read and critique their fiction must submit two short samples of their work for consideration. The email concluded: “we are for people wanting to write and sell commercial fiction.” Based on my experience in the group I interpreted this as meaning “not literary fiction,” and probably also “not the kind of fiction you write.” So I let it rest, figuring I would either return or not the following week as the mood struck, but not feeling particularly hopeful about the possible value I might derive from participating long-term in this process.

A week passed and, as Monday rolled around again, I began to feel like I ought to do something proactive about the writers’ group. So I finally responded to the group leader’s email, thanking her for the note, saying I found the group interesting, etc. I mentioned that I was thinking about writing a set of interconnected short stories and would regard the group as an external stimulus to getting the stories written. I speculated about whether I might stand on the other side of the commercial/literary divide:

“I would like people to read what I write, and I would be happy if they paid me for doing me that honor. However, I don’t try to craft what I write in order that an audience will like it. My hope is that I can write what I see and hope that people will find themselves liking it. Also, if I came to realize that my writing conformed to some convention of a genre I would probably go out of my way to change what I’d written. I’m concerned that my orientation might put me at odds with the rest of the group, in terms both of what I offer in critique and in what I might receive. I understand that the group isn’t a debating forum and that each writer finally decides what recommendations s/he will adopt. But you get my point I’m sure.”

To this email I attached a copy of the story I’d written for the RMFW-organized public reading event, mentioning that Dave the MC had announced after my reading, perhaps jokingly, that my story was “too deep” for him. I understood that I wasn’t presenting a formal audition, but I wondered if, by giving it a quick once-over, she could picture herself and the rest of the group offering useful critique for my kind of writing. She responded within an hour or so:

“We are a commercial fiction group and we are crafting specifically to be marketable. That is the goal for our group but there are other groups around that don’t have that as criteria. You may fit better elsewhere. And, by the way, successful writers know they have to go “out of their way” to “Change” what they’ve written, thus the critique group. It sounds like our purpose is not yours. I do get your point. I suspect you wouldn’t be there for the same reasons we are there – to make our work fit commercial needs…

“I’m pretty sure you are needing a different type of group. Especially in light of the idea that the work was “too deep” for the MC. If that means what I suspect, you are writing literary. Our group might even find it belly-button studying… all I was able to do was take a peek at the first couple of pages. This would not be the type of material we are looking at. It doesn’t get right to the action (which doesn’t have to mean physical action), it is what we call “belly button studying” …nothing wrong with that…it just doesn’t work for us.

“If at some point you find yourself writing commercial fiction (and having read many books on how to do that, gone to conferences, etc.) feel free to approach us again.”

So at least now I know what I’m looking for: a navel-gazers’ group. And I don’t have to subject myself to any more of that pulpy trash those people call “writing” — not that there’s anything wrong with pulpy trash…

Emotional Contagion

Thanks to Anne for calling my attention to this study, which presents evidence supporting the commonly held belief that happiness is contagious. Apparently the happiness contagion is more virulent among non-intimate members of one’s social network — neighbors and acquaintances, though curiously not coworkers. I was struck by this observation from political scientist Robert Fowler, one of the co-investigators:

For a long time, we measured the health of a country by looking at its gross domestic product. But our work shows that whether a friend’s friend is happy has more influence than a US$5,000 raise.

Presumably this remark is meant to reassure less affluent readers — and less affluent nations — that money can’t buy you happiness. However, the implication is that money and happiness are positively correlated. How much is a friend’s friend’s happiness worth? $5,500? $6,000? Or is it the other way around — people who make more money also have happier friends and associates? The researchers re-evaluated data gathered in the Framingham Heart Study ,a massive project that’s been following the same individuals for decades. Though the write-ups describe the results as causative — your neighbor’s happiness makes you happier as well — I’m pretty sure that the findings were derived from cross-sectional samples; i.e., measurements of happiness captured at a particular moment in time. If so, then all one can legitimately infer is that happy people tend to congregate together. And also that people with happy friends make more money than people with unhappy friends. By implication from Fowler’s remark, happiness and money go together. So what we see are networks of happy, affluent people hanging around together. The researchers also found that unhappiness doesn’t cluster as tightly — by implication, then, less affluent, less happy people find themselves more socially isolated. Of course I haven’t read a detailed description of this study so maybe I’m just being pessimistic.

Anyhow, yesterday at the grocery store checkout line I enjoyed one of those happy encounters with a distant member of my social network. The guy scanning my groceries noticed that I’d bought a bottle of peach-flavored iced tea. This is good stuff, he noted: it comes from Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania is the bottled tea capital of America. I had no idea. I also had no idea that people from Schuylkill County PA have the highest per-capita alcohol consumption in the USA. I wondered whether they mixed their booze with the iced tea. And so on, passing the time with idle chatter. I left the store on a happy note that actually persisted for maybe the next hour and, though I can’t be sure, I suspect that I spread my good cheer to my wife and daughter.

In contrast, the day after the presidential elections, also at the grocery checkout, I had an unhappy encounter with a fellow shopper. I was heading for the shortest line with my shopping cart when I noticed a woman, sans groceries, standing at the end of line. You’re kidding, I said to her. No, she said: my husband is on his way with the cart. And you’re saving a place? Yes, and our cart is REALLY full. But you can’t do that, I objected. The woman disagreed: where does it say that you have to have a cart to stand in line? It’s just not courteous, I countered. In fact, I said to the checkout lady, I’d like to register a complaint about this woman. You’re kidding, the woman blocking my way said. No I’m not. Oh bugger off, she said to me; get a life. Go fuck yourself, I replied. And here comes the husband with the full grocery cart. You can’t talk that way to my wife; you’re bullying a woman. Oh please, I said, she’s the one who told me to bugger off. So the husband and I stood there toe to toe yelling at each other. I’m going to call the police, he said; go ahead, said I. Somebody who works at the store intervened: please guys, take it easy. Meanwhile the checkout line had emptied out and the checker started scanning this pushy couple’s groceries. My line had now cleared as well (it was the principle of the thing for me, not so much the time I would save), so I too was getting processed. The delay was minimal, but I’d have to say that the unhappiness I acquired from this encounter lasted just about as long as my happy encounter from yesterday, and was just as contagious.

Dream Surgery

Here’s a fragment of a dream reported this morning by our daughter. She was conducting a project in biology class which required her to make an incision in the flesh. She couldn’t find the instrument required to perform the procedure, nor could she think of the name of this instrument. At last the name came to her: “scalpel.” As soon as she found the name she found the scalpel itself.

As I understand it, Lacan asserts that the unconscious consists of a loosely-structured array of signifiers floating free from what they signify. In the dreamstate both the signifier and the signified were inaccessible. The dream procedure consisted of retrieving first the signifier “scalpel” and then immediately suturing it to what it signifies. It’s paradoxical that the word-object pairing getting sutured together is an instrument for cutting and dividing.

Beyond the Uncanny Valley

Here’s a helpful diagram prepared by Seyfried, reprinted here with his permission:

second-uncanny-valley

Seyfried’s elegantly symmetrical diagram builds on and extends roboticist Masahiro Mori’s “uncanny valley” diagram, illustrating the contention that, as an inhuman thing comes more and more to resemble an actual human, the subjective response abruptly shifts from empathy to revulsion. Dredging the bottom of the revulsion valley are the uncanny undead: corpses, zombies, the actors in Southland Tales. Seyfried’s diagram is identical to Mori’s until, moving from left to right, from subhuman to the “healthy person” apex. This is where Mori’s graph stops; Seyfried extends it to the right, beyond human to the posthuman. In Seyfried’s rendering another unhappy valley of revulsion plunges down when humans encounter technologically or genetically enhanced transhumans, but this revulsion reverses itself in posthumanity, where the uncanny similarity to the ordinary healthy human fades into more radical difference. Is this plausible?

In a related study, a team of Swedish neuroscientists demonstrated that human subjects can be made to experience virtual bodies as their own. Did they feel comfortable in their new virtual skins, or were they repulsed? Says the article:

“It feels like I’m the mannequin,” one volunteer reported. “Wow, this is cool,” said another.

Empirical Pragmatism in Psychology

There’s a complex and convoluted metapsychology underlying psychoanalytic praxis, a theory about what it’s like to be human and how change happens. But the practice of analysis is minimalist in the extreme. As Sinthome describes it in the commentary to one of his recent posts, the third in a series on Lacanian sexuation:

The analyst barely says anything at all, often simply repeating certain phrases or remarks that the analysand makes, occasionally modifying them slightly. It is the analysand that does all the work.

Recently an online friend told me about SAA — Sex Addicts Anonymous, a 12-step program modeled on AA. Here are the first three steps:

  1. We admitted we were powerless over addictive sexual behavior – that our lives had become unmanageable.
  2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
  3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

The SAA meetings consist largely of public confessions and testimonials; outside the meetings members talk with their “sponsors” — those who have been “sober” for awhile, who are farther along the 12-step path to recovery.

These radically different psychologies share at least one thing in common: a tenuous connection between theory, practice, and results. If a Lacanian analysand actually achieves change, can it really be attributed either to the analyst’s interventions or to the structural alterations proposed in Lacanian theory? If the sex addict kicks the habit, can it really be attributed to meetings and the sponsorships or to the higher Power who works through these means?

Hence the shallow pragmatic skepticism of the empirical approach. We can speculate all we like about why things happen, but at least we can document what happens. If you think the outcomes being measured inadequately reflect the real changes being effected, then tell us what you think those changes really are and we’ll figure out ways to measure them instead. If you can’t distinguish your services based on outcome then price and customer preference become the deciding factors. Some people like to take a bath; others prefer to pay $80 for a massage. Some jog around the neighborhood; others join an athletic club.

NaNoWriMo Win!

The hallway was surprisingly silent. Glaring but ineffective lights lined the ceiling above the corridor where the footsteps of a slight, uniformed figure hurried to reach the end. The nurse could not see far enough into each cell to distinguish the drugged and sleeping patients. She was quite sure that she did not want to be there.

Thus begins Progress to Grey, a new novel written this month by Kenzie Doyle. This is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. The challenge is to write an entire novel of 50,000 words or more, from start to finish, during November. Kenzie finished this afternoon, with 4 days to spare: word count = 50,055. That’s 2,000 words a day. Plus she continued to get all her homework done and, best of all, she didn’t whine about it.

Here’s the info on the email announcement sent by the author to the first invited readers:

Tagline: Instability is the only path away from self-delusion
Rating: PG-13 to R
Warnings: Violence, depictions of insanity, weird messages, etc.
Dedications: Rachel and Kerry, for also participating and letting me blab about my word count to them.
Sophie and Alexandra, for supporting me and just being great friends who are more objective, since you weren’t panicking about your own stories.
My parents, for actually thinking that this is an interesting project and putting up with flurries of self-loathing and bragging.
And to various authors, actors, musicians, and directors, for creating worlds and characters that I could steal and change, and for providing a soundtrack for my writing.
Apologies: I’m sorry if I suck at talking to you enough, especially during November, and for bragging SO MUCH. Also, I’m sorry that this isn’t edited and probably has a lot of sentences and scenes that make no sense. (I’m also sorry that I’m making so much of a bit deal about this for no reason…uh…yeah.)
And now…Here it is!!

Nightmare Alley by Goulding, 1947

nightmare-club

“Have you an answer for this question?”

“Oh, I’m afraid not.”

“Why?”

“Because this question has to do with the stock market, a labyrinth whose eccentricities no mentalist of my acquaintance has ever been able to solve. As a matter of fact, I tried it two or three times myself and find that I can do much better at the racetrack.”

nightmare-geek

“Magicians are a dime a dozen nowadays. Anyway I never fool with an act unless it’s got something sensational. Wait… I just happened to think of something. I might have a job you can take a crack at. Course it isn’t much, and I’m not begging you to take it, but it’s a job.

“That’s all I want.”

“We’ll keep you in coffee and cakes. A bottle a day, a place to sleep it off in. What do you say? Anyway it’s only temporary, just until we can get a real geek.”

“Geek?!”

“You know what a geek is, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Sure, I know what a geek is.”

“You think you can handle it?”

“Mister, I was made for it.”

A “Bold Plan”

I wake up Monday morning to discover that a “bold plan” has been announced. The US Treasury is pumping an additional $20 billion into Citigroup, and the Treasury and FDIC are guaranteeing $306 billion of risky loans in Citicorp’s portfolio. In exchange, the US government receives $7 billion in preferred stock and warrants for 254 million shares of Citigroup common at $10.61 per share.

We aren’t privy to all the information and my expertise is limited, but based on what’s been publicly revealed I’ll attempt to summarize the value of the deal for both the Citigroup Corporation and the U.S. government.

  • The $20 billion cash injection is easy to understand.
  • How much are the loan guarantees worth? All loans are “risky” in the sense that the lender faces some risk that the borrower won’t pay back the loan: that’s why the lender charges interest. That these loans have been specifically identified as “risky” means that there’s a greater-than-average likelihood that the borrowers will default. They aren’t all likely to default; rather, some higher-than-average percentage of them probably will. Ordinarily extra risk commands extra interest. But we presume that these are extraordinary loans: subprime, earning lower-than-average interest. So let’s say that the loan guarantees are worth the difference between the interest rate actually charged and the interest a high-risk loan ought to earn. How much is that? Let’s be conservative and say it’s 3%, meaning that if an additional 3% of these loans default the guarantor breaks even. So: $306 billion in guarantees × 3% risk premium = $9.2 billion is the value to Citigroup of these guarantees. In fact these guarantees could be worth a lot more if the property held as collateral by the bank securing these loans — presumably mostly houses and other buildings — turn out not to be worth in today’s real estate market what they’re valued at in Citigroup’s books. Because the government is only guaranteeing the loans and not acquiring them outright, Citigroup continues to hold the collateral. I presume this means that Citigroup can still decide when to sell these non-liquid assets and for how much. If they sell a house now, when its market value is down, then presumably this difference between book and sale value of the collateral will be written up as a loss on Citigroup’s loan. The government would then have to recoup Citigroup for the difference.
  • Now the preferred Citigroup shares. The news releases say the shares are worth $7 billion. These aren’t shares currently in investors’ hands, traded on the stock exchange; they’re a new issue offered directly and exclusively to the U.S. government as part of this deal. The government is paying another $20 billion in cash to Citigroup to buy more of these preferred shares. How was the value for the preferred shares set? I don’t know, but let’s assume that they really are worth what the dealmakers say they’re worth. Why be skeptical? Well, there’s this…
  • The warrants. The US government receives an assurance that it can buy Citigroup stock at $10.61 per share, whenever the government chooses to exercise its option to do so. At the time this deal was struck Citigroup shares were trading at $3.71 per share. That means the warrants are worthless. Potentially even worse, the government could decide to redeem their warrants at a loss in order to prop up the market for Citigroup stock.

To summarize: Citigroup gets $20 billion in cash, along with presumably uncollateralized loan guarantees in excess of $300 billion worth a minimum of $9.2 billion in risk premiums, for a total of $29.1 billion cash and equivalent. In exchange the U.S. government gets $7 billion in preferred Citigroup stock. That really is a bold plan. Put it this way: I’m not sure I’ve got all the facts at my disposal, but what’s been said leaves plenty of questions unanswered in my mind anyway.

Why I’m Antisocial, Part N+1

After reading my short story in a recent “Open Mic” public reading, an event I described in a comment to this post, I emailed Dave, the organizer of the event, telling him that I’d enjoyed it and asking him what he thought. Dave was disappointed in the turnout, feeling that neither the bookstore hosting the Open Mic event nor the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers (RMFW) which sponsored it had done enough publicity. Dave concluded his email by saying that he planned to write a skit for the next public reading and asking if I’d like to play one of the parts.

I said I’d be happy to oblige with the skit. I also added my two cents’ worth about possible improvements to the reading segments of the evening’s entertainment:

Three of the writers presented the first chapter from their novels. My sense was that they intended to titillate the listeners, perhaps inciting them to buy. Maybe there was also a desire by the unpublished writers to achieve some credibility with their peers in the RMFW, perhaps to get some advice or to make connections. But there was no interaction between readers and listeners during the program, and other than cursory “nice story” remarks all around I engaged in no conversations with anyone afterward.

I suggested making the readings more interactive:

E.g., someone else might read the piece beforehand and engage the writer in a brief discussion about some aspect of it. I write a blog, and just before the public reading I put my story up to see if anyone had any suggested modifications. A high school kid suggested a change in the ending, which I more or less followed in the reading I presented. Subsequently several other blog commenters said they liked the original ending better, which generated some interesting observations about crafting a story generally and about this story’s meaning in particular. The danger is that this sort of interaction might feel academic to the casual attendee.

I told Dave that, since I’m not a member of RMFW, I wasn’t aware of their PR efforts, but that I was curious about connecting with the innumerable book reading groups scattered around the area and inviting them to attend/participate in the next public reading.

Dave’s reply conveyed a different tone and message. He wondered, given the lack of PR and my non-membership in RMFW, how I’d found out about the public reading.

I did pitch to the board that all participants would be members of RMFW. Now, as far as I’m concerned, that has a lot of wiggle room. If…let’s say…the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band were in town and heard about the show and wanted to come play, I’d be a fool to reject them.. I have no problem with you assisting in a skit. However, plugs for your work, provided (I’m assuming) that you write prose, needs to be exclusive to RMFW members.

My reply in part:

Sorry about crashing your party. I know nothing about RMFW other than the Open Mic, so I’ve never really considered joining. I guess if I go to the website I can find out the benefits of joining, annual dues, etc. I’m afraid I tend to agree with Woody Allen about joining clubs, so if you’re going to be all members-only about it then maybe I should bow off stage now. I’ve written a couple of novels, neither of which has been published or is being considered by any agents or publishers, so I bring no Nitty Gritty PR benefits as a non-member participant. Maybe if I ever get famous I can include this vignette in my memoirs — going rogue in my first public reading.

Then Dave

Although, I’m sure you intended the “crash” as humor, by no means did you upset any balance of the universe. Loved having you. Well, you have two novels and perhaps you should push them. RMFW is good at encouraging you to do that and educating members to the pitfalls. Whereas I’m generally a non-joiner, this organization has worthy benefits…

Then me again, after complaining about the non-informativeness of RMFW’s website and encouraging Dave to go see for himself.

In your prior email I got more of a sense that the Open Mic is intended primarily to publicize both the organization and the works of the members — I guess that hadn’t occurred to me before. I thought it was more about getting writers and readers together in a public place focusing on what’s written.

It’s been 3 days now and I’ve not yet heard back from Dave. Some day I’ll go back, see if they’ve fixed the RMFW website, report my findings to Dave.